FEDERATION OF EURO-ASIAN STOCK EXCHANGES
ANNUAL REPORT APRIL 2009
FEDERATION OF EURO-ASIAN STOCK EXCHANGES
Huseyin Erkan
President of FEAS & Chairman and
CEO of the Istanbul Stock Exchange
During the previous year, the global economy
has undergone the most rigorous financial and
economic crisis in decades. Projections, on
the other hand, do not seem promising either;
the depth and duration of the crisis remains to
be uncertain to a large extent. The contagion
of the real economy by the financial crisis has
already resulted in rising unemployment in
many countries. Furthermore, in spite of the
sharp slow-down in demand in all economies,
we have seen inflation rise all over the world,
led by developing countries. The priority of the
governments is to reverse this trend, along
with restoring confidence and stability in the
financial system. We have seen governments
dealing with immediate stability concerns,
making effort to alleviate the impact of the
current recession, and to put the global
economy back on track.
As far as the FEAS region is concerned, it has
persevered with a strong desire for continued
growth in world economies in 2008, until the
financial crisis hit the world. The performance
of the securities markets in the second half of
2008 is displayed in the consolidated regional
statistics on the adjoining pages, reflecting the
downturn felt around the world. The individual
statistics of each of our members are available
in the member profile section.
The end-year results for 2008 show that
market capitalization in the FEAS region has
decreased by 47.4 per cent compared to end-
2007. While stock trading volume in US Dollar
terms would be expected to increase as they
have exceeded the volumes seen in 2007
during the same period, along with the
appreciation of the US Dollar, the average
daily trading volume is down by 8.4 per cent
compared to end-year 2007. Bonds also
reflected weakness during the second half of
2008 in terms of trading volume on US Dollar
basis. ‘Other’ category showed stability with
limited growth over 2007, where the average
daily trading volumes increased by 9.5 per
cent over 2007.
The Federation, on the other hand, as a
globally recognized regional institution, is
growing and maturing vigorously with its
members towards its goals. Founded 13 years
ago by 12 regional exchanges, FEAS now
brings together a total number of 32 stock
exchange members from 29 different countries
and 7 affiliate members under the same roof.
Our continued commitment to the FEAS
5-year strategic plan is designed to achieve
the objectives specified within the mission
of the Federation and to attain a greater role
in the competitive global market
environment.
As we are now on the verge of completing our
fourteenth year of operation, most of you are
well aware of our accomplishments to date.
Those that were particularly noteworthy are;
the planned upgrade and the implementation
of the FEAS Data Center (FDC) to standardize
and promote cross market statistics and the
initiation and upcoming implementation (2009)
of the FEAS Index. I am confident that this will
provide for better visibility and is also one step
further towards cross border trading. We
realized special activities that promoted the
growth of stock exchange operations such as
Bilateral Visits, establishing the FEAS Training
Center, and the joint ISE/FEAS projects with
international associations and organizations
such as the World Bank, World Federation of
Exchanges (WFE) and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD).
During 2008, FEAS has jointly hosted with its
members four meetings and conferences.
These were the Working Committee Meeting
held in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Second Annual
Conference of the Montenegro Stock
Exchange, entitled ‘A Step Forward’, held in
Budva, and the “Media Workshop: How to
Interact with the Media During Times of Crisis”,
held in Istanbul, Turkey. In November 2008,
the 14th FEAS General Assembly Meeting was
held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, together with the third
Affiliate Member Meeting, in addition to a
Working Committee Meeting, Executive
Committee Meeting and Annual Conference of
Contributors.
Our continued commitment to the FEAS 5-year
strategic plan is designed to achieve the
objectives specified within the mission of the
Federation and to attain a greater role in the
competitive global market environment. Our
focus during the previous five years has been
on the areas of promoting corporate
governance; achieving effective dissemination
of information; facilitating timely disclosure;
attaining regional convergence in listing
requirements, settlement, trading rules and
software; creating greater awareness and
visibility for the region’s stocks and investment
opportunities; promoting the listing of
‘investment grade’ companies in the region’s
markets; and creating linkages among the
region’s intermediaries, data providers,
settlement and custody institutions and stock
exchanges, while encouraging cooperation
among the securities commissions. Our major
target is to attract the global investors who will
benefit from FEAS services and continuously
invest in the Region.
FEAS focus during the next five years will be
discussed at the upcoming Presidents’
Meeting. Some of the issues we will cover are
products such as ETF’s, based on joint
indices.
The future outlook of our individual markets, as
covered in the member profile pages, shows
that there continues to be work toward the
challenges of member markets in providing
competitive and viable financing options to
both the government and private sectors, while
enhancing operations through technology and
expanding services to market participants. The
effort continues to focus on the areas of
increased transparency through investment in
infrastructure and developing regulations to
promote stronger corporate governance.
FEAS will soon be celebrating its 15th
anniversary. Since its launch five years ago,
SAR has been published as two semi-annual
reports, released in April and October. Starting
from April 2009, there will be one FEAS
yearbook every year and 3 quarterly FEAS
Magazines, covering different regional
information, together with their stock exchange
statistical data, in each issue. We intend this
publication to be utilized as a summary
reference to the Region and we attach great
value to FEAS Yearbook and Quarterly
Magazines as marketing instruments to attract
interest in the Region. I would like to take this
opportunity to extend my heartfelt thanks for
their contributions to: Bloomberg, Finans Asset
Management, Is Investment, Muscat Securities
Market, NASDAQ OMX Group and Tayburn
Kurumsal for making this publication possible.
We hope that you will take a moment to visit
our contributor section in the FEAS website at
www.feas.org and read their articles in the
following pages.
In closing, I want to commend the efforts of all
our Task Force members in achieving our
regional objectives through their commitment
and the Secretariat for its success in
maintaining our cohesive organization. As we
close our 14th year, I am happy to say that our
formula for achievement will be applied toward
our development for the future.
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